Heat Output Results

Solid State Drives are not quite a household technology (yet), and because of this the marketing propaganda has become as high-pressure as any political campaign. Benchmark Reviews has tested SSD products from many manufacturers (to name a few: Crucial, G.Skill, Intel, MemoRight, Mtron, OCZ, Patriot, Samsung, Super Talent, and Silicon Power) and each has taken full advantage of the vast new technology improvements offered by their products. Some manufacturers have made claims that other websites have taken to the mat and wrestled with a topic (such as power consumption), only to later be criticized for improperly testing the hardware. Well, we don't intend on repeating the mistakes of our mega-site affiliates, which is why we plan to approach new methodology in small bites.

There have been television shows made famous on the principal of dispelling rumors and myth. This section is not exactly meant to imitate that concept, although we do separate fact from fiction. The first myth we challenge is the claim that Solid State Drives produce no heat. Nearly every manufacturer selling Solid State products has at some point claimed their SSD products do not produce heat, which is believable on many levels because there are no moving parts. Well, chances are very good that you have already peeked at the illustration below, so I won't delay in explaining what we've found.

Using some spare Styrofoam panels, I constructed a small unit to shield two 2.5" notebook drives from the nearby power supply. Although not pictured, there was also an open-top wall section that surrounded this unit, further insulating it from thermal effects of any nearby environment. Since there was no data connection made, these tests are what I would consider to be 'idle'. The power leads were connected and power was delivered for twenty minutes before temperatures were taken with a non-contact IR thermometer at approximately six inches from surface. The rooms ambient temperature as measured directly at the test site was exactly 19.0°C at the time I recorded the results for the units pictured.

In the image above there are only two devices pictured of a four-cell test platform. On the left side is the Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 60GB HTS721060G9SA00 7,200 RPM SATA 2.5" Hard Disk Drive, and on the right is one our Solid State Drive test subjects. The Hitachi 7K100 is one of the few 7200 RPM notebook hard drives available to OEM builders, and since these faster spinning disks use more power they also create more heat as a by-product. Although not pictured because of camera direction, my test rig setup compares up to four products at once. The results of other SSD test products are shown in the charts below.

Temperature Readings at 19.0°C

Device Name

Ambient

Drive Temp

OCZ Apex Series SSD

19.0°C

31°C

Mtron Pro 7500 SSD

19.0°C

31°C

Mtron Pro 7000 SSD

19.0°C

29°C

Mtron Pro 3500 SSD

19.0°C

29°C

OCZ Core Series SSD

19.0°C

28°C

Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 HDD

19.0°C

27°C

Samsung MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA SSD

19.0°C

27°C

Silicon Power SP064GBSSD25SV10 SSD

19.0°C

27°C

Super Talent FTM60GK25H SSD

19.0°C

27°C

Mtron MOBI 3000 SSD

19.0°C

27°C

Silicon Power SP032GBSSD750S25 SSD

19.0°C

26°C

G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SSD

19.0°C

26°C

Crucial CT32GBFAB0 SSD

19.0°C

25°C

Patriot Warp SSD

19.0°C

25°C

Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HDD

19.0°C

23°C

OCZ OCZSSD2 SSD

19.0°C

21°C

The message here is simple: Although the heat produced by SSD's under load is usually the same as what the Hard Disk Drive generates at idle, Solid State Drives still produce heat. Don't let marketing hype fool you into believing that Solid State Drives are cold-operating devices just because there are no moving parts. Cooler, yes. Cold, no.